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Genesis第40章

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1 And it came to pass after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord the king of Egypt.

2 And Pharaoh was wroth with two of his officers, with the chief of the butlers, and with the chief of the bakers.

3 And he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound.

4 And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them; and they continued a season in custody.

5 And they dreamed a dream both of them, each man his dream in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream; the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were bound in the prison.

6 And Joseph came to them in the morning, and looked upon them, and behold, they were sad.

7 And he asked Pharaoh's officers that were with him in the ward of his lord's house, saying, Why look ye so sad to-day?

8 And they said to him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said to them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you.

9 And the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine was before me;

10 And on the vine were three branches: and it was as though it budded, and its blossoms shot forth; and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes:

11 And Pharaoh's cup was in my hand: and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand.

12 And Joseph said to him, This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days;

13 Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head, and restore thee to thy place: and thou shalt deliver Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his butler.

14 But think on me when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness to me, I pray thee, and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house:

15 For indeed I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.

16 When the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Joseph, I also was in my dream, and behold, I had three white baskets on my head:

17 And in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bake-meats for Pharaoh; and the birds ate them out of the basket upon my head.

18 And Joseph answered, and said, This is the interpretation of it: The three baskets are three days:

19 Yet within three days shall Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and shall hang thee on a tree; and the birds shall eat thy flesh from off thee.

20 And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birth-day, that he made a feast to all his servants: and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants.

21 And he restored the chief butler to his butlership again; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand:

22 But he hanged the chief baker: as Joseph had interpreted to them.

23 Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.

   

来自斯威登堡的著作

 

Arcana Coelestia#5126

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5126. 'And you will put Pharaoh's cup into his hand' means in order that they might consequently serve the interior natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'putting the cup to drink' as making one's own, dealt with above in 5120, besides the obvious meaning of serving; and from the representation of 'Pharaoh' as the interior natural, dealt with in 5080, 5095, 5118. For there is an interior natural and there is an exterior natural, the exterior natural being made up of impressions which enter in directly from the world by way of the senses into the natural mind, that is to say, they enter the memory belonging to that mind and therefore enter the place where mental images are formed, see 5118.

[2] So that people can know what the exterior natural and what the interior natural are like, which make up the exterior man, and from this can know what the rational is which makes up the interior man, a brief reference to them must be made here. From infancy to childhood a person relies solely on his senses, for during those years he is receiving, through his bodily senses, nothing but earthly, bodily, and worldly impressions, which during those years are also the raw material from which he forms his ideas and thoughts. Communication with the interior man has not yet been opened up, except insofar as he is able to take in and hold on to those impressions. The innocence which exists in him at this time is solely external, not internal, because true innocence resides within wisdom. But the Lord uses this - his external innocence - to bring order into what enters through the senses. If innocence did not come to him from the Lord in that first period no foundation would ever be laid down on which the intellectual or rational degree of the mind proper to a human being could be established.

[3] From childhood to early youth communication is opened up with the interior natural, by the person's learning about what is decent, public-spirited, and honourable, both through what parents and teachers tell him and through his own efforts to find out about such matters. During early youth to later youth however communication is opened up between the natural and the rational, by his learning about what is true and what is good so far as his public life and private life are concerned, and above all about what is good and what is true so far as his spiritual life is concerned, all of which he learns about through listening to and reading the Word. Indeed insofar as he uses truths to immerse himself in good deeds, that is, insofar as he puts the truths he learns into practice, the rational is opened up; but insofar as he does not use truths to immerse himself in good deeds, or does not put truths into practice, the rational is not opened up. Nevertheless the things he has come to know remain within the natural; that is to say, they remain in his memory, left on the doorstep so to speak outside the house.

[4] But insofar - during these years and the next period of life - as he impairs the things he knows, refuses to accept them, and acts contrary to them, that is, insofar as he believes falsities and practises evils instead, the rational is closed, as is the interior natural also. But in spite of that, the Lord's Divine Providence enables communication to remain open enough to give him the ability to understand the good or truth he knows about. But he does not make these his own unless he truly repents and for a long while after that wrestles with falsities and evils. With people however who allow themselves to be regenerated the opposite takes place; for gradually, that is, in consecutive stages, their rational is opened up, the interior natural then becoming ranged in order beneath it, and the exterior natural beneath that. This occurs especially in the period from late youth to adulthood; it also continues in progressive stages to the final period of those regenerating people's lives, and after that in heaven for ever. From all this one may know what constitutes a person's interior natural and what his exterior natural.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.